


Comin' Home Baby

by PepperF



Series: Diego whump [27]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Babyfic, F/M, Gen, I'm just putting that out there now, accidentally acquired baby - Freeform, it's really only diego/lila if you squint, look the baby is not lila's, so as not to mislead people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:02:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27228544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperF/pseuds/PepperF
Summary: His first thought, on opening the door, is that whoever it is has gone. And then he looks down. "Uh." He looks around, and then steps out past the basket that's just under the shelter of the stone lintel, squinting up and down the street through the rain. "Hello? Hey! Yo, whoever left a frickin' baby on my doorstep, wanna come back and deal with it?"He waits, but there's no answer. Frustrated, he turns back around. There's a yellow book wedged into the side of the basket, and—gingerly avoiding the sleeping infant—he eases it out, and reads the title.Parenting for Dummies"Fuck."
Relationships: Diego Hargreeves/Lila Pitts
Series: Diego whump [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1951318
Comments: 25
Kudos: 79
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Comin' Home Baby

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you Bethany for helping this to have 10% more swearing! ;)
> 
> Boy did this one get away from me... it's about twice as long as any of the others. Oops? Oh, and it's Nellie's fault that there's babyfic at all, so blame her if this is terrible. She suggested the idea, and I was like, _no, they'd be terrible at it!... Ooh..._

No one knocks on the Umbrella Academy front door. Anyone familiar with the place uses the kitchen door, and they don't really get casual visitors. So it takes Diego a moment to place the noise.

Is that...?

He listens for a minute, but there's no further knocking. Just the rain that started coming down heavily a few minutes ago, with a distant hint of thunder. But there definitely had been knocking, he's sure about that. And he can't hear any of the others dealing with it. 

After another couple of minutes, it's clear that no one is going to answer it, and Diego huffs, rolling out of bed and stomping down the stairs, so that if anyone cares to pay attention, they'll know he's pissed. He'd been planning on spending a rare evening to himself, in the luxury of his childhood home, and now he's answering doors like he's their goddamn butler or something.

His first thought, on opening the door, is that whoever it is has gone. And then he looks down.

"Uh."

He looks around, and then steps out past the basket that's just under the shelter of the stone lintel, squinting up and down the street through the rain.

"Hello? Hey! Yo, whoever left a frickin' baby on my doorstep, wanna come back and deal with it?"

He waits, but there's still no answer. Frustrated, he turns back around. There's a yellow book wedged into the side of the basket, and—gingerly avoiding the sleeping infant—he eases it out, and reads the title.

_Parenting for Dummies._

"Fuck."

\---

"Luther! Five!"

The baby stirs, and Diego gives it a terrified look, and puts the basket down in the hall, closing the door gingerly behind him. Then he goes to the foot of the stairs, and hisses as loud as he dares.

"Klaus! Five! Luther! Get your asses down here!"

There's a rumble of footsteps, accompanied—appropriately—by a rumble of thunder close by. The storm is getting nearer. Luther appears on the stairs leading down to the kitchen. "What?"

"Get up here." Diego strides back over to the baby, who has opened dark, sleepy eyes, and is looking around in apparent displeasure.

Grumbling, Luther climbs the stairs. "What?"

Diego just points. 

"Um...that's a baby," says Luther, looking to Diego for an explanation. 

"I know. Someone left it on our doorstep."

"Why?"

"How the hell should I know?"

"Well, it's got nothing to do with me," says Luther, immediately. 

Diego gives him a disgusted look, and then raises his head. "Five! Klaus!"

" _What_?" snaps Five, appearing with a pop behind Diego. By accident or design, he's timed it perfectly with a brilliant flash of lightning, nearly giving Diego a heart attack. Then he sees the baby, and—for once—seems at a total loss for words.

"Baby," says Diego, a little tired of explaining this already. "Should you be doing that when...?" He waves a hand at the weather, but Five just looks at him contemptuously.

"Baby?" says Klaus, from the top of the stairs. He comes tripping lightly down them, and over to the basket, bending down to peer in. "Well, aren't you precious?" He looks around at his siblings, eyes twinkling with amusement. "So? Who's been a naughty boy?"

"Don't look at me," says Five.

Klaus shudders. "I really wasn't. How about you, Diego? Anything you want to tell us?"

"She kind of looks like you," remarks Luther.

"Fuck off," snarls Diego, who's been thinking the same thing. "Anyway, she's definitely not yours. We don't even know if you can successfully mate with humans."

"Oh, fuck you!"

"Fuck _you_!"

"Hey, hey, hey!" The baby begins to cry, and Klaus gives them an exasperated look. "Now look what you've done." He reaches down to pluck the baby out of its basket, bouncing it in his arms. "Are you mine, little one? I don't remember, but honestly, I could have been off my face. Yes I could! Yes I could!"

Five rubs a hand over his face. "Jesus. I'm too old for this," he says. "I'm going to get coffee."

"That's your solution to—" Five disappears before Luther finishes, "—everything." He looks at Diego. "Great."

"Yeah." His conscience twinges. "Uh. Sorry. About...what I said."

Luther side-eyes him, as if waiting for the punchline, but that's all Diego's got, so he lets it drop. Instead, he looks at the basket again, and his shoulders drop. "What the hell are we supposed to do with a baby?"

Diego gives it some thought. Well, there is one person he knows who's already done this. "Call Allison," he says.

Luther brightens. "Right!"

\---

Allison is in LA, and on set, so they have to wait for her to get their message and call back, during which time Klaus charms and then abandons the baby, and disappears upstairs, from where they can hear the distant sounds of his radio. Five has vanished as well, without a word. What's also not helping is the thunderstorm outside, which is getting worse and worse, and setting off the baby, to the point where it's like the baby and the storm are trying to outdo each other in sheer volume. When the phone finally rings, Diego lets Luther answer, because he's got his hands full.

"Allison! Someone left a baby on our doorstep, what do we do?" There's a long pause, and then Luther shakes his head. "She's on tour with her orchestra, remember? It's just me, Diego, Five, and Klaus."

There's an even longer pause, while Allison presumably absorbs the full horror of the situation.

"No, I don't know whose baby it is! None of us do. No note, just a book on parenting. Uh, lemme check." Luther puts the phone against his chin so he can address Diego. "How old is it?"

"How should I know?!"

"Uh, yeah, we're not sure. I don't know, small size. Like..." Luther holds out his hands, considering them, "just under a foot and a half, maybe? No, it just kind of lies there and screams. Okay. Okay. Uh, like a couple of hours ago, why? Oh. Does it need changing?" he asks Diego, who just glares. "Yeah, we don't know that either. Oh. Okay, I guess we could...yeah. Okay, hang on, let me get a pen."

Luther ' _mm-hmm_ 's and nods along as Allison apparently dictates a long list of instructions down the phone, writing it all down in the last page of the book.

"Okay, got it," he finishes. "Right. Are you sure? Yeah." He sighs heavily. "Okay. Thanks, Allison. We'll see you then. Bye."

"What?"

"She can't come back until the weekend," reports Luther. "But she says it probably needs changing and feeding ASAP. After that, we just need to keep doing that every couple of hours, and try to get it to sleep in between, and that's the basics covered. Oh, and she said we need to support the head. She was really insistent about that."

"Okay, great. You take the baby, and I'll go buy whatever shit we need."

"Oh no," says Luther, backing away. "You look like you're doing great."

"It hasn't stopped crying for half an hour!"

"So I'd better go quickly!"

"Don't you fucking dare—"

There's a pop, and Five appears, laden down with bags, and soaked to the skin. They both stare at him as he dumps them on the floor, and shakes himself like a dog. "Food and diapers," he says, breathlessly. "I figured we'd need them. Oh, and some other essentials." He removes a bottle of wine from one of the bags and waves it at them.

"Okay, great, Five's the responsible one," says Diego, recovering. He holds out the baby. "Here."

"Yeah, no thanks," says Five. "Good luck with that, I'm going to have a hot bath." And he disappears again, with his bottle.

"Dammit!"

"Fine," huffs Luther. "Look, I'll do it this time, but you get the next one."

"Deal," agrees Diego, instantly. They look at the bags of stuff, and then at the baby. "Infirmary?" he suggests.

"Good idea."

\---

The wind sucks at the windows like it's trying to pull them loose, as Diego watches Luther ruining three diapers in succession by sticking them to everything but where they should go, including himself. Finally, he takes over with a growl. "Jesus, it's not rocket science."

"It's fiddly! I can't help having big hands." Luther watches him trying to wrangle the squirming, unhappy baby into a clean diaper. "I don't think she likes you."

"You upset her," Diego accuses, stung.

"You've been holding her for the past hour."

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't be happy if you were sitting in that mess, either." He's trying not to think about it too much. Babies are gross.

Luther watches silently for another few minutes as Diego sticks and then resticks the diaper, finally getting it in place to his satisfaction. "We _really_ need to find her family."

"Yeah, no shit. Here. I did the diaper, so you get feeding." He holds out the baby—supporting her head, as per instructions—and Luther takes her, reluctantly. She is ridiculously tiny in his hands. "Besides, I need to go change."

"No, wait, don't leave me with her!"

But Diego has had enough. "You're it," he says, before beating a rapid retreat.

\---

His resolve holds out long enough for him to wash up and change his shirt, and then he makes his way down to the kitchen, half-afraid that Luther will have squished the baby on accident. To his great amusement, however, the person holding the baby, and a bottle that is being greedily devoured, is Five. Their little brother has a disgusted look on his face, but is managing surprisingly well.

"Adorable," says Diego.

"RIght?" agrees Luther, smugly, as he makes himself a snack.

Klaus, with his usual timing, meanders in and steals a slice of toast from Luther's plate. "Looks like the storm's passed," he remarks. "In more ways than one, huh?" He 'toasts' Five, who gives him a sarcastic smile. "So, do we have a name yet?"

"We're not keeping her," says Diego, quickly.

"Aw, a little girl! Unless they decide otherwise later. And don't be so hasty, you're in the frame," says Klaus.

"Am not."

"Are too. Five, you spent the most time with Diego's former flame, do you see a certain resemblance?"

Five considers the child, who is still focused exclusively on the bottle. "Not really," he says, finally. 

"See!" says Diego.

"She's not trying to kill me, for one thing."

"She's a baby," objects Luther.

"That was one time," objects Diego, at the same time. They both glare at each other.

"Twice," corrects Five. "Anyhow, I don't really think this is Lila's style."

"Having a baby isn't a question of _style_ ," says Klaus, theatrically. "It's about instinct, about those animal urges that dragged us up out of the primeval slime and took us all the way to the top of the food chain! Although, interesting sidenote, I read that we're actually in the middle somewhere, like pigs and anchovies. And I mean," he continues, before any of them can interrupt, "we didn't allow babies in my cult because oh my god everyone was _so_ high! But if we had, we would have nurtured them, cared for them... It takes a village," he says, waving his hands around at the four of them.

There's silence as they digest this. "Do you just...say words?" asks Five.

"Sometimes," agrees Klaus. "Stream of consciousness, you know. You should try it sometime, it's very freeing. I think we should call her Lilette."

"I hate you," sighs Diego.

\---

A couple of hours later, definitely-not-Lilette wakes to the sound of thunder, and starts wailing. Diego, who had dozed off on a couch, startles awake at the noise, and throws up an arm to shield himself, before he realizes where he is. "Shit. What?" He checks his watch, annoyed to find it's just past 1am. "Fuck." He scrubs a hand over his face and glares down at the basket, which hadn't been there when he fell asleep. "Thanks, guys," he calls, to whoever's listening. They really need to set up a schedule, if they're going to be doing this much longer.

One wet diaper later—not helped by the fact that she hates everything right now, especially someone trying to help her—he carries her down to the kitchen again to work out what he's supposed to do with milk or whatever. Something about testing it on your arm? He's pretty sure he saw that on a sitcom once. Luckily, the parenting book is open to the right page, and he can at least follow instructions.

Trouble is, the baby hasn't had the same instructions, because she's not in the least interested in taking the delicious bottle of lukewarm formula he prepares for her. Nor does she want to be put in her basket, or carried around, or bounced, or rocked... Diego finds himself pacing up and down with a baby who just seems to want to scream and struggle against his hold, meaning he constantly has to readjust so he doesn't drop her. None of the others appear, but there's no way they're sleeping through this, decides Diego, vengefully taking the stairs to the bedrooms. They just aren't coming out.

"Cowards!" he yells, over the screaming baby and the noise of the storm. It is really coming down out there. Hopefully it'll have passed before Allison flies back on Friday.

Taking his temper out on closed doors is only so satisfying, so he wanders back downstairs again, almost used to the—no, that's not possible, it feels like it's piercing his brain—almost resigned to the awful noise. And then he just keeps walking. It takes her nearly an hour to cry herself to sleep, by which time Diego has visited parts of the house he's not seen in years. He collapses onto a bed in one of the disused guest rooms, with the baby surrounded by a nest of (clean enough) pillows.

And then wakes up at 4am to do it again.

\---

At 8am, feeling like he's hungover, he drags himself downstairs to see who's around. He'd broken into Luther's room around dawn and left the baby in her basket beside his bed, on the principle that Five would probably murder him, and Klaus would probably just put the baby outside and go back to sleep—but he's still feeling the effect of his broken night's sleep. It's a gray morning outside, the rain having slowed again to a drizzle, and the baby is feeding thirstily from a bottle held by Klaus.

Diego glares at her. "Why wouldn't you do that for me, huh?"

"I guess you don't have the touch," says Klaus. "It's okay, you can learn." He pays no attention to Diego turning his glare on him instead. "I think she looks like a Ciara today. What do you say, little one?"

"Okay, controversial question, but why don't we call social services?"

Klaus gasps, and hurries to put his hands over currently-Ciara's ears. "Diego!"

"What? I'm saying she should be with people who know what the fuck they're doing, that's all."

"Look, if someone left her on the doorstep to the Umbrella Academy, it was for a reason," says Klaus. "I don't know what, but that _can't_ be accidental."

"Yes it could," argues Diego. "It's a big fucking mansion, maybe they wanted her to go to someone rich. Or maybe they thought we were still, you know, an academy. Or maybe they just wanted to dump her. We don't know!"

"It's not worth the risk," says Klaus, firmly. "What if she really is one of ours? I'm not handing my baby to the authorities! Or what if she's on the run?" He gasps. "What if the Commission wants her dead?!"

"She's a _baby_."

"Look, I've met some of the Commission's victims," says Klaus. "Some of the nicest ghosts you could meet, wouldn't hurt a fly. The Commission has some fucked-up priorities when it comes to preserving the timeline. I doubt they'd blink at killing a baby."

"Fine," groans Diego. "But I'm going to start looking for her parents. It's your turn to look after her."

"Uh, about that..."

"No. Absolutely not." Diego downs the coffee he'd poured himself in one scalding gulp as he makes a speedy getaway. "I've done my time. I'm out of here."

"I have things to do as well!" Klaus calls after him.

"Take it up with Luther! Or Five!"

\---

"What the hell is 'tummy time'?"

"I don't know. Is that when you blow raspberries on their little fat tummies, yes you do, yes you do!"

"I don't think so. It says here that they're supposed to have an hour of it."

"Yeah, that seems excessive."

Diego rolls his eyes as he sheds his coat and hangs it over a chair to dry off, and peers around the library door. "Hey, idiots. Five."

"Hey Diego," says Luther. He and Klaus have set up camp on a blanket on the floor, with the kid between them, and a host of—baby things. It looks like someone's been shopping, because there are definitely some new cuddly toys in there, and the kid is looking content, at least as far as it's possible to tell. She's gurgling and kicking her feet as Klaus runs his fingers over her belly, tickling her. Five is in an armchair next to a reading lamp, one leg crossed over the other and a book in his lap, because he sits like a psychopath. "Any luck?"

"Not really. I can't speak to Beeman at the precinct—there are a lot of things he'll overlook, but not child endangerment. If I tell him, we'll have social services on our asses within the hour, and _someone_ didn't want that. But I did some digging through the lost and found ads, checked the word on the street." By which he means his former neighbor, Mrs. Rodriguez, who knows everything that happens around here, and Nigel from his gym, whose wife is currently pregnant with their second kid and who knows where all the preschooler activity is going down. He shrugs. "I looked around for tracks and shit, but with all this rain, there wasn't anything to find. Weird fuckin' weather today, too. It seems to come in cycles every couple of hours. Pretty sunny right now, though."

Five lifts his head from his book, and stares at him, head cocked. Diego knows that look. 

"Something you want to share, Five?"

"When would you say it was last really bad? The weather. What time?"

"Uh, I dunno. About three?"

Five unfolds himself and stalks to the edge of the blanket, dropping to his knees beside the baby. And then he reaches out and—flicks her on the forehead.

"Hey," objects Klaus.

The baby's face screws up, and begins to redden. Her mouth purses, and Five flicks her again.

"Five, stop that, she doesn't like it!"

The first wail comes, and—as if on cue—there's a rattle of rain against the windows, and the sound of the wind rising. Diego glances up, frowning. He doesn't remember seeing any clouds out there.

Five is also staring at the windows. Klaus tries to soothe the unhappy infant. "Hush, little one! Five is just a nasty, mean boy, but he didn't mean to make you cry."

"Yes I did," corrects Five. "I wanted to see what would happen." 

"Did she..." Diego looks from the window to the baby, and then at Five. "Did you know that was gonna happen?"

"No." Five looks interested in the child for the first time. "Hand her over." Klaus glares at him, and Five rolls his eyes. "I promise I'm not going to try to make her cry again."

"Well it's definitely your turn," says Luther, sitting up and stretching. "Hand her over, Klaus."

"Fine," huffs Klaus, and lets Five take the kid.

And then Five, to his brothers' amusement, uses his mobile face to pull a series of ridiculous expressions, crossing his eyes, puffing his cheeks, and sticking out his tongue until the baby falls into a stunned silence. And the rising storm outside...dissipates.

Diego watches the light brighten. "Huh."

"Is it just me, or did—"

"It's not just you," says Five, interrupting Luther. They all look at the child. "She's got powers."

"Fuuuuuuck," breathes Klaus. He looks around at them. "Hey, d'you think it's genetic?"

\---

Two days later, Allison hasn't been able to fly in because flights are being cancelled across the east coast due to unseasonable weather, which is simultaneously frustrating and impressive. She and Vanya have been caught up to speed, but there's not an actual urgent reason for them to come back home, other than general panic. It looks like it's settling in to be a long-term problem, which Diego is trying hard not to think about. And there have been a lot of new purchases. And wipes. _So many_ wipes. 

The social services question has been temporarily shelved, because—powers. However, Diego has managed to have an off-the-record conversation with Beeman, who immediately insisted on coming to inspect them. It took a while to convince him that the stormy weather wasn't pure coincidence, but once he finally, reluctantly conceded that there did seem to be something weird happening, and that probably they were the best people to deal with it, he agreed to do some digging on the quiet, and also to bring them a load of hand-me-downs from his cousin's kid who'd just turned one. They'd also had a visit from Nigel and his heavily-pregnant wife, Carmencita, with the excuse of dropping off some stuff. At first, Diego had thought they were checking up on him, but in fact it seemed to be a cover for coming to coo over the 'new arrival'. He doesn't get it, honestly, but they're all grateful for the support. The Academy hasn't seen so many visitors...probably ever. Not within his memory, anyhow, although Luther claims their father threw some wild parties in the sixties.

And then there's another knock on the door, and it's Lila—with three other children in tow. 

"Lila! And entourage. What a crazy coincidence! Come in, come in, one and all, the more the merrier," says Klaus, the only one of them who seems unfazed by her sudden appearance, and who happens to be carrying the baby against his chest in a stretchy sling. "Come and meet Wilhelmina, our little mystery baby, turned up on the doorstep—"

"Oh, that was me," says Lila, casually.

Silence. As one, Luther, Klaus, and Five turn to look at Diego. He feels all the blood drain from his face, and has to sit down abruptly. "Is she...?" he croaks, gesturing between them.

But Lila is already rolling her eyes. "Jesus, of course not. She's one of _us_ —spooky kids with weird powers," she says impatiently, when no one seems to be getting it. "Born on the first of October 1989...ringing any bells? Didn't your dear old dad ever mention that there were others?"

"Oh," says Luther. "Oh! You—the briefcase—"

"Yes, come on, keep up. I took some time off to kind of get my head together, and then—well, I figured I could do some good. Not like I can fix my own childhood, not without creating a paradox that'll bring the Commission down on me like a ton of bricks—but there's nothing to stop me from going after the others."

They look at the kids behind Lila with new eyes. None of them look alike, of course...just like them. They're various ages, but the oldest looks maybe five or six at the outside.

"Why'd you bring them here?" asks Klaus.

"Well, this place is supposed to be an academy, right?"

"Oh, no. No, no, no," says Five, catching on. "No way."

"Haven't you ever wondered why you were the only ones that showed up?" She huffs. "There were more like me, but it wasn't all devoted parental love that kept them out of the limelight. The powers make them...stand out. Not always in a good way. They didn't all survive childhood. This lot?" " She points back with her thumb, and then makes a gesture across her neck that makes all the adults wince. "Yup. So! What are we going to do with them?"

Luther sits down heavily next to Diego, making the whole couch jolt. "Well, fuck," he says.

"Hey," snaps Diego. "Watch the language, dick." 

The oldest kid giggles, and Diego hides a smile. 

But Five isn't so easily amused. "How do you expect us to look after four children?" he snaps. 

"Hah! Four?" says Lila. "No, no—this was all I could manage on my own." She taps her head. "I have a list, and I'm checking up on all of them. If they're fine, fine. I'll leave them alone." She shrugs. "But if not..."

"How...how many?" asks Diego, weakly.

"About thirty-odd, that I'm aware of," says Lila.

Five sits down suddenly. On the floor.

"Well," says Klaus, into the stunned silence. "I guess the Umbrella Academy is back in business."


End file.
